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Like the Naruto pair shippers, they destroyed Naruto Fandom.

Member

Perhaps this is not the right place, but I just wanted to speak and throw out that insult and anger. Given that today two years have passed since I left Naruto Fandom.
I was loyal to all shipp, I was a shipper, NaruSaku, SasuHina, SasuSaku, NaruHina, and I was also okay with shipping NaruSasu, although I was not a shipper.
And so when SS and NH became canon, I was glad.
Yes, you can argue as much as you want about how these shipping are not disclosed, but still it’s useless to argue with the fact that they canon think. Of course, this does not interfere with shipp your pair. In other fandoms this happens when canonical shipping appears.
But in Naruto Fandom everything went differently.
NS, SN and SK fans began to insult fans of canon shipp. To create lists of Schippers inadequate in their opinion, where I went, although I was not a particularly ardent Schipper of the canon. They did everything to survive the canonical shipp fans from the fandom and make them believe that they are wrong. At the same time spreading false facts allegedly interviewed by Kishimoto and many fans were led to this.
One SK threw a guy just for being a shipper SS.
Another NaruSaku fan made a video where he burned photos of Hinata and NH.
And then it went even worse:
One of the NaruSaku fans began to wish me that everything was bad in my family.
NaruSasu fans began to accuse me of homophobia, although I was loyal to NaruSasu.
And another SK fan generally started wishing me to die and to those who shipp canonical shipping.
As a result, I became depressed and started blaming myself for becoming shippers.
In the end, I still left fandom. Yes, I still review Naruto and support SS, NH, NaruSaku, but I still have a feeling and resentment with disappointment in my soul.
Not like this manga taught Naruto fans. ((
Did you have a similar experience in other fandoms in particular, being a fan of the canonical shipp?
I just really needed to speak and I think this section is suitable.

the only villain on staff

I think you take shipping a bit too seriously, and those people take it too seriously as well.

I enjoy shipping, but I don’t engage with fandoms outside of enjoying fanart, fanfiction, and in friendly debate on a forum like this where I can yell about my favorites but step away knowing that at the end of the day none of are serious about it.

Also NaruSasu had way more chemistry than other pairings lol. Making them reincarnations of god-brothers and just knowing that subconsciously doesn’t erase the whole kissing thing and all of Kishimoto’s intentional ship baiting across the board.

Member

Personally, I never cared much for Naruto / Hinata. She always silently adored him which was kinda cute and he was nice to her, but I never saw much in that. For me, it was pretty one-sided, he only realized it in the movie and kinda reciprocated her feelings right away. I thought he had much better buildup with a lot of other characters that was more on the level of equals.

To topic: I'm not around in many fandoms (mostly Kingdom Hearts, Dragonball and Digimon) and I've never been wished anything badly, nor did I wish someone else harm. I like shipping in a healthy way - what totally annoys me is that people take every little thing and turn it sexual. It sickened me that most of what people had to say about Caulifla and Kefla in the Dragonball: Tournament of Power arc was what Goku should do with these girls and whatever, same thing again with the sweet friendship Broly built in his own new movie. That really grosses me out. Really, I like shipping and everyone can ship whatever they want, but not everything is sexual. You can have a brotherly / sisterly bond, master and student, parent and child, soulmates, friends, comrades, admiration a mixture of everything or something entirely different and just mashing sexually loaded pictures into every thread doesn't show much depth.
Also, people tend to believe that everything in fiction - which is rather ironical - is supposed to be totally calculated and has to make perfect rational sense. People complain about characters having a breakdown after a loved one has died because it "takes too long", think that five years of decent education cancels out 30 years of horrible experiences, fifth graders should behave like adults and similar things. That's not how it works.

Junior Detective

It's been nearly five years since Naruto ended and I'm amazed people arent over the endgame pairings. I dont think I've seen this with any other fandom. Even the reactions towards ATLA and LOK wasn't as intense. What makes it worse is that Naruto had far bigger problems near the end and shippers were more focused on who the titular character would end up with.

Bronze Member

I mean, Naruto kinda draws the issues of the shipping variety with the way its own story and pacing took form.
Part 1 Naruto ends on this main character that instead of remaining in his village that he really wants to be a part of and training to become a better ninja, travels around the world in order to mainly train to bring back his precious "neutral adjective to indicate either a friend or a romantic interest." I'll shorten it into "Dude".

Then you basically see the main character achieving his goal by the end of Pain (who, minus those who believed in a sudden death out of nowhere, had any doubt Naruto was going to become Hokage by that point?), and the rest of the conflict is a huge buildup for the main character's confrontation with his "Dude".
Oh yeah, a war happens, it's kinda bad, and it STILL happens because the main villains motivations were to get back with/at their respective "Dudes".

With Kishimoto duping the whole ninja shtick pretty early on (to me the illusion of ninjas was broken as soon as they had a big shonen tournament that gives all the supposedly enemy villages free access to another one) and having almost every big plot point tied to relationships and "could be intendend as romantic" symbolism, it shouldn't come off as a surprise if a lot of people got so invested in it, it was basically fed to them that it was the important stuff.

Not that it CAN'T be why you're invested in, but I agree it shouldn't be this serious.
Sakura was one of my first and biggest crushes and still kinda is, and since Naruto was the lovable idiot/underdog of my formative years shipping them almost came off as natural and obvious.
That being said, looking back I absolutely see how it was absolutely one-sided, born out of nothing (I'd give props to Naruto for liking one of the not incredibly attractive girls, since Sakura was supposed to be as such, if that concept didn't lose any meaning by the time Shippuden came around) and full of verbal, psychological and physical abuse.

Naruto himself doesn't really "earn" Hinata's affection that much better during the series, despite the fact that I liked how they at least tried to make this believable with the movie. Still, it isn't enough to erase the fact that Hinata confessed while also saving his life, and... nothing happens, like, he says "K thanks" and then goes back to the main plot of which Hinata isn't a part of.
Naruto is also incostant with the "Dude" stuff, considering that he goes from spying naked women (at the age of 12, damn) to the almost unavoidable romantic subtext with Sasuke, to showcasing some... actually rather strong homophobic tendencies (he says Konohamaru's male erotic thecnique is gross and states Kakashi simply saying "I like you" gorssed him out so much he failed to complete the rasen-shuriken), to performing the male harem technique himself.

After all this and all this time, there's only one thing I feel like saying: the whole manga should've been about Hinata overcoming her own insecurities in life and becoming a stronger person, while having this blonde loud kid as a secondary character in the background.

Bronze Member

Your view of how the Naruto ending went down is quite skewed. I was there. SS and NH are way bigger than other ships, so it's only logical what happened next. Those fans rushed into the smaller communities to cause a ruckus, so the smaller communities either fought back or closed themselves off for years.

Even now, 4 or 5 years later, the smaller communities still have to deal with idiots coming around to brag about how they're canon and everyone else is not. No one cares anymore except them, so now all they do is fight each other. It's pretty clear all they cared about was winning and being the "best most popular" ship else they would have no reason to be warring with each other right now.

I for one am happy my ship didn't become canon. From what I've seen of canon, it's a complete trashy mess. We create our own content among ourselves and I've never been happier with it. It's clear to me that the smaller communities still around making their own stuff like NaruSaku, NaruSasu, SasuHina, and others (I'm not sure about SK) didn't need to be canon to enjoy their ships.

I remember being so excited for Naruto to end because the series was losing quality very quickly and the entire war arc (Except Minato because I love him and some cool Sakura moments) was boring to nth degree. I was more upset that it didn't really end at all, they just gave everyone a carbon copy kid to continue the series. So disappointing. If Naruto were going to continue, I thought for sure Konohamaru's story would be next in line or something, but no.

Just a mess.

Naruto did teach me one thing though. Most popular shounen is trash and so are the ships. I have trouble trusting some of these mangaka these days because they always seem to just... mess everything up somehow? I haven't been into Bleach for a very very long time and I didn't have any ships, but the same thing basically happened with Bleach.

I haven't picked up a new manga in years because of Naruto. I've stuck to old favorites like Natsume Yuujinchou (which is not a shounen) or D.Gray Man (which gets updated once a millennia). It's a shame that my favorite kind of story (main character having a dark side/inner demon presence or secret powers) is usually shounen.

Every new fandom I join, I warn people not to get invested in the ships because 10/10 times, you'll be disappointed. Even if it's exactly what you wanted. Just don't bother and enjoy it from a distance.

the only villain on staff

Your view of how the Naruto ending went down is quite skewed. I was there. SS and NH are way bigger than other ships, so it's only logical for what happened next. Those fans rushed into the smaller communities to cause a ruckus, so the smaller communities either fought back or closed themselves off for years.

Even now, 4 or 5 years later, the smaller communities still have to deal with idiots coming around to brag about how they're canon and everyone else is not. No one really cares anymore except them, so now all they do is fight each other. It's pretty clear all they cared about was winning and being the "best most popular" ship else they would have no reason to be warring with each other right now.

I for one am happy my ship didn't become canon. From what I've seen of canon, it's a complete trashy mess. We create our own content among ourselves and I've never been happier with it. It's clear to me that the smaller communities still around making their own stuff like NaruSaku, NaruSasu, SasuHina, and others (I'm not sure about SK) didn't need to be canon to enjoy their ships.

I remember being so excited for Naruto to end because the series was losing quality very quickly and the entire war arc (Except Minato because I love him and some cool Sakura moments) was boring to nth degree. I was more upset that it didn't really end at all, they just gave everyone a carbon copy kid to continue the series. So disappointing. If Naruto were going to continue, I thought for sure that Konohamaru's story would be next in line or something, but no.

Just a mess.

Naruto did teach me one thing though. Most popular shounen is trash and so are the ships. I have trouble trusting some of these mangaka these days because they always seem to just... mess everything up somehow? I haven't been into Bleach for a very very long time and I didn't have any ships, but the same thing basically happened with Bleach.

I haven't picked up a new manga in years because of Naruto. I've stuck to old favorites like Natsume Yuujinchou (which is not a shounen) or D.Gray Man (which gets updated once a millennia). It's a shame that my favorite kind of story (main character having a dark side/inner demon presence or secret powers) is usually shounen.

Every new fandom I join, I warn people not to get invested in the ships because 10/10 times, you'll be disappointed. Even if it's exactly what you wanted. Just don't bother and enjoy it from a distance.

Yeah, it was terrible to be in the Naruto fandom with a non-canon ship. My favorite pairings weren’t even ever going to happen since those characters were already dead or long since hinted to be paired off with somebody else, but it was really hard to enjoy the fandom space after the series ended because of how brutally cruel certain shippers were once their pairing became canon.

It definitely hurt the fanfic and fanart scene a lot.

Minato was my favorite, too. I always loved the mystique of Naruto not knowing who is father was but the audience knew...then they met for real (and not in a time travel film where they forgot anyways) and it was still cool, but hardly as great as I think most of us expected things to play out.

And worse, it just felt lame that nobody ever acknowledges that Naruto is their savior’s son once it becomes more obvious and it gets glossed over like pretty much everything else in this series...

I mean, Naruto kinda draws the issues of the shipping variety with the way its own story and pacing took form.
Part 1 Naruto ends on this main character that instead of remaining in his village that he really wants to be a part of and training to become a better ninja, travels around the world in order to mainly train to bring back his precious "neutral adjective to indicate either a friend or a romantic interest." I'll shorten it into "Dude".

Then you basically see the main character achieving his goal by the end of Pain (who, minus those who believed in a sudden death out of nowhere, had any doubt Naruto was going to become Hokage by that point?), and the rest of the conflict is a huge buildup for the main character's confrontation with his "Dude".
Oh yeah, a war happens, it's kinda bad, and it STILL happens because the main villains motivations were to get back with/at their respective "Dudes".

With Kishimoto duping the whole ninja shtick pretty early on (to me the illusion of ninjas was broken as soon as they had a big shonen tournament that gives all the supposedly enemy villages free access to another one) and having almost every big plot point tied to relationships and "could be intendend as romantic" symbolism, it shouldn't come off as a surprise if a lot of people got so invested in it, it was basically fed to them that it was the important stuff.

Not that it CAN'T be why you're invested in, but I agree it shouldn't be this serious.
Sakura was one of my first and biggest crushes and still kinda is, and since Naruto was the lovable idiot/underdog of my formative years shipping them almost came off as natural and obvious.
That being said, looking back I absolutely see how it was absolutely one-sided, born out of nothing (I'd give props to Naruto for liking one of the not incredibly attractive girls, since Sakura was supposed to be as such, if that concept didn't lose any meaning by the time Shippuden came around) and full of verbal, psychological and physical abuse.

Naruto himself doesn't really "earn" Hinata's affection that much better during the series, despite the fact that I liked how they at least tried to make this believable with the movie. Still, it isn't enough to erase the fact that Hinata confessed while also saving his life, and... nothing happens, like, he says "K thanks" and then goes back to the main plot of which Hinata isn't a part of.
Naruto is also incostant with the "Dude" stuff, considering that he goes from spying naked women (at the age of 12, damn) to the almost unavoidable romantic subtext with Sasuke, to showcasing some... actually rather strong homophobic tendencies (he says Konohamaru's male erotic thecnique is gross and states Kakashi simply saying "I like you" gorssed him out so much he failed to complete the rasen-shuriken), to performing the male harem technique himself.

After all this and all this time, there's only one thing I feel like saying: the whole manga should've been about Hinata overcoming her own insecurities in life and becoming a stronger person, while having this blonde loud kid as a secondary character in the background.

Hinata deserved and still deserves better. I hate that she just gives up being the next in line as clan leader when she could have used her power and influence to make things better for the branch family. Instead she just...settles to be a housewife despite being one of the strongest shinobi of the village like all of the other female characters.

Also, yeah, Naruto was hyper-focused on his “Dude” and all of the “will he, won’t he” with other characters was definitely bait for shippers so they could stick with the series until the end.

Also fellas is it gay to wear a necklace almost shaped like a heart with a photo of your not-friend on it and smile?

But really, it was intentional. Kishimoto and SJ Editorial were feeding the shippers for years with the artwork and story direction and all of the tidbits in those character guidebooks and directories made over the years. They wanted their cake and to eat it, too, and they did.

God, this topic just reminded me why I stopped caring about Naruto in the first place.

Junior Detective

Something else that always bothered me about the ending was how certain characters were basically Karma Houdinis. Seriously Sasuke does terrible things throughout Part 2 and Naruto and Sakura still welcome him back. It's especially worse in Sakura's case. Not just Sasuke, but Kabuto and Orochimaru as well. How are they not dead or at the very least imprisoned.

Bronze Member

Minato was my favorite, too. I always loved the mystique of Naruto not knowing who is father was but the audience knew...then they met for real (and not in a time travel film where they forgot anyways) and it was still cool, but hardly as great as I think most of us expected things to play out.

I got into Naruto when Minato was still referred to as Arashi Kazama because we didn't know his name. I was CONVINCED that he was Naruto's father. I wrote so many theories, read so many fanfics, enjoyed so much fanart. Ooof, it was extremely satisfying to learn Minato's name and learn about Kushina. To me, that was the best time to be a Naruto fan. I loved Jiraiya too, I wish we had gotten to see him more as Naruto's grandpa and not just glimpses here and there. Naruto Shippuden opening 6 still the best opening ever.

I was so excited for Naruto and Minato to meet once it was revealed he'd be fighting in the war, but not much happened. (except more shipping bait where Minato saw Kushina in Sakura, and then a rushed goodbye convo). Road to Ninja is my favorite Naruto movie ever and I wish we'd gotten more!

The only Naruto fics I used to read were time travel AU fics where Naruto and Minato were somehow together in the same timeline. Now I don't read Naruto fanfic at all. Makes me sad, but I really just can't stand it anymore. I still hold the opinion that Naruto would've been better off ending without any ships and just moved onto Konohamaru's story with Naruto in the background.

the only villain on staff

I got into Naruto when Minato was still referred to as Arashi Kazama because we didn't know his name. I was CONVINCED that he was Naruto's father. I wrote so many theories, read so many fanfics, enjoyed so much fanart. Ooof, it was extremely satisfying to learn Minato's name and learn about Kushina. To me, that was the best time to be a Naruto fan. I loved Jiraiya too, I wish we had gotten to see him more as Naruto's grandpa and not just glimpses here and there. Naruto Shippuden opening 6 still the best opening ever.

I was so excited for Naruto and Minato to meet once it was revealed he'd be fighting in the war, but not much happened. (except more shipping bait where Minato saw Kushina in Sakura, and then a rushed goodbye convo). Road to Ninja is my favorite Naruto movie ever and I wish we'd gotten more!

The only Naruto fics I used to read were time travel AU fics where Naruto and Minato were somehow together in the same timeline. Now I don't read Naruto fanfic at all. Makes me sad, but I really just can't stand it anymore. I still hold the opinion that Naruto would've been better off ending without any ships and just moved onto Konohamaru's story with Naruto in the background.

Oh my god, me too! Time travel fic or what-if scenarios or any permutation of that were the only Naruto fic I would consume. I binge read so many that I literally ran out of them to read for awhile.

I would have taken a whole series of Jiraiya training Minato or really just anything from Jiraiya being younger all the way up to the tragedy between Kakashi, Rin, and Obito just to get more of those characters.

I also really liked Madara and Hashirama, but it was another case of being an interesting story with poor execution.

Yeah, Konohamaru would have been more interesting. The young generation coming in after the Rookie 9 had way more to deal with than the generation that was born from them.

Member

I love the Original Naruto and I think up to the point of the big Naruto - Sasuke clash (that one included) it's a really good series. We have a lot of different characters who we actually get to know: We get to see their problems, ranging from feeling insecure about one's own weight, being afraid of maybe not being able to become a proper ninja with just Taijutsu or feeling left behind by your comrades. Every character had moments to shine and an actual arc.
Shippuuden kinda wiped that away in an instant. Most of the cast suddenly felt the same to me because they were mostly pretty okay with their life now, everyone became a Chu-Nin just like that and their problems were more or less yesterday's problems. I still continued to enjoy the series up to the conclusion of the Pain arc, but after that it completely went downhill for me. So many new characters that couldn't do ANYTHING - five kage could do less than one Naruto did - and it all became the Naruto show. Sakura's development was killed due to popularity reasons, we became a ton of new characters I could never bother to learn all the names of and some really clumsy redemption arcs - like when Gaara's father reappeared and they made up and everyone got some last sweet words with former frenemies - that whole thing felt rather awkward. Finally, we got the final boss more or less out of nowhere, Sakura wasn't allowed to do anything and we got some forced one-sided love pairings with copy kids. I will still hold the Naruto - Sasuke clash in high regard as the best point in the series for me (the dramatic, the panels, the overall feeling) and try to ignore all the boring, naruto-only stuff that came afterwards.

EDIT: The Minato / Kushina / Jiraiya part was great. Also loved the conclusion to the Itachi arc, he became my favorite character afterwards.

Bronze Member

Meh.
I'd like Jiraya more if he wasn't Naruto's godfather but as soon as his beloved disciple and wife died leaving the kid bearing a name chosen by Jiraya behind, he's like "Nope! Gotta go travel the world cuz a toad told me to. Have fun living as an hated orphan!"
Also provides to chuck said orphan down a precipice because training, going out of his way to explixitly state that if Naruto died, he died and that was it. "Sorry Fourth, Imma try and kill the son for whom you gave your life away in order to see if he can summon something."
Also also he could've totally helped out the Third with the whole Orochimaru deal, but said no, only to show up regardless and defeating a giant snake (pretty measly feat for a ninja of his caliber), and simply watched his beloved mentor dying from afar.
But then, he has the guts to threaten Tsunade for going against the Leaf because he suddenly cares.
And laments not becoming Hokage despite being offered the position he himself turned down.

The parts when he's teaching Naruto the Rasengan and where you can FEEL just how much Naruto enjoys the company of a role model even more than learning the technique itself is adorable (it's so heartwarming when Jiraya leaves and Naruto tries to let him stay a bit more), but as often happens when Kishimoto expands upon something it ends up weakening the concept.
Seriously, you were Naruto's godfather, man. This is like the Third Hokage, who keeps going on about the Will of Fire and how everyone in the village is family and then allows Naruto to face endless hatred as a child, Choji and Rock Lee to be bullied around, and what else, let's see... oh yeah, Hanzo ordering the extermination of an entire clan minus two brothers with no reprecussion.
Oh, and the aforementioned Hyuga clan thing. Children are basically human slaves with a seal that could kill them at any moment.

But hey no, all is well in the Leaf Village, we're all family. I love when my cousin's life is in my hands and I can give them head-splitting migraines just because they "think wrong" or something.
I swear I don't hate Naruto, I just find it fun to analyze how simplistic it was back then, and how Kishi... kinda wasn't good with some subtleties.
I'm not any more serious about all of this than I am when I nitpick Dragon Ball's power levels.

...are we making this a thread about Naruto? Because I shouldn't say "yes" to that, but I also won't say "no".